How self-publishing on LinkedIn can elevate your professional profile

May 22nd, 2015

Author Jerome Ternynck from Mashable

It’s no secret that social media and online profiles have changed the rules of the job search game in more ways than one.

Data shows that 73% of millennials found their last job through a social network and 77% of organizations are using social networks for recruiting purposes. With more and more recruiters looking online to gain additional insight into who they’re hiring or to find potential employees, getting to know a job candidate no longer stops at his or her carefully crafted resume or formal interview. An employee or potential employee’s online presence has become an extension of his or her resume and portfolio, and self-publishing online, specifically on social networks, is becoming an increasingly popular way to strengthen employee profiles.

Social platforms like LinkedIn allow job seekers and ambitious professionals to build their own personal brand and can open doors to new opportunities in the workforce. The social profile is becoming an increasingly important factor in the job search, and is beginning to act as the de facto professional portfolio. Enhancing this portfolio through self-publishing on LinkedIn can help job seekers establish credibility and catch the attention of recruiters.

Benefits for job seekers

Recruiters and hiring teams will usually search for a candidate’s name online, and LinkedIn is the most commonly used site for recruitment; 94% of organizations that use social media to recruit report LinkedIn as their first stop.

Unless a candidate has a well-developed set of social profiles that include relevant content, he or she is wasting an opportunity to gain an edge over the competition. LinkedIn’s self-publishing platform has surpassed a million long-form posts, and LinkedIn users collectively publish around 50,000 posts per week. With these kinds of numbers, it’s obvious that this tool is a popular one, and candidates that want to keep up in today’s competitive job-search landscape should be taking advantage of it.

Career-boosting benefits

But the self-publishing platform isn’t just great for active job seekers. Even if an individual isn’t currently searching for a new position, building a robust profile is part of establishing a good reputation and persona online, which can come in handy in the future. Self-publishing is a great way to demonstrate proficiency and initiative in your career.

LinkedIn publishing makes it easy to create a body of content, and helps users raise their professional profile to another level by showcasing their expertise on relevant topics. The credibility and value of this content has the potential to take professionals much further than a simple resume or online profile can. And unlike a personal website or blog, which requires writers to solicit and build an audience, self-publishing on LinkedIn allows users to share content with people already in their network and reach a broader audience thanks to easy sharing features.

One of the great things about publishing on LinkedIn is how easy it is to post your content. While publishing on LinkedIn used to be reserved for a select few users or “INfluencers,” any LinkedIn user can now click the “publish a post” button at the top of his or her LinkedIn homepage to add content.

Users can add text, images, links and even video. The post will then appear on a user’s profile and will be shared with his or her network, including connections and anyone who follows the user. LinkedIn also provides post stats such as views, likes, shares and other metrics. It’s just as easy as posting to a personal blog — but with an audience already built in.

This isn’t to say everyone with a LinkedIn profile should publish just for the sake of publishing. Writers should be able to communicate effectively about topics relevant to their job experience, expertise and future career goals. Once you start to self-publish, be sure to produce content consistently without overdoing it. Visitors should see you publishing regularly, but only when you have something valuable to say. Be sure that articles enhance and showcase specific skills or competencies.

Whether you’re actively searching for a job, or just looking to elevate your reputation and establish yourself in certain areas, self-publishing on LinkedIn should be a part of your career strategy. Taking advantage of this tool is a great way to increase exposure, expand your network and carve out a position as a thought leader in your industry.